New Dance UK training & six £1000 bursaries for business skills development

Date Fri 1 March 2013

Filed under: Events and Other Interesting Stuff, DanceUK News

Part of The Dance UK professional development programme:The Business of Dance, supported by Arts Council England

Dance UK’s The Business of Dance is a new training and professional development programme to support dance managers and dance artists to develop their business skills. It is a programme of knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning events, and also a number of placements within dance organisations to share their skills with the wider sector. The next event is:

Nutrition and Touring is a new seminar aimed at company managers, artistic directors, rehearsal directors, touring dancers and dance science students and practitioners. It will feature the most up-to-date research and advice in healthy touring and nutrition for dancers.

Background to the Business of Dance and other future events.The Business of Dance seminars have been designed to be affordable and delivered so artists and managers are able to attend without having to take a day off work or out of the studio. The training is designed at two levels to respond to the needs of emerging dance managers, producers and self-managed artists, and secondly to experienced dance managers and leaders who want to maintain and develop their business skills focusing in more depth on specific topics.

The programme was launched with How to Source Funding for Artistic Projects, which took place on 16 February 2013 with the support of Yorkshire Dance in Leeds and in partnership with the Independent Dance Managers Network, (IDMN). The event was attended by self-managed independent dance artists, emerging dance managers, and company dancers from Northern Ballet keen to broaden their industry knowledge. Independent dance manager Sarah Shead gave an overview of fundraising and how to make an application to Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts, and then a panel of dance artists including Carlos Pons, Jenni Wren artistic director of Slanjayvah Danza, and Phil Sanger, choreographer and dancer with Phoenix Dance Company, shared their experiences of successfully fundraising to secure support and resources for their own projects.

Dance UK is planning to repeat the seminar How to Source Funding for Artistic Projects in Birmingham and London in April 2013. Tickets will go on sale shortly. Further events focusing on other topics will also be released soon. Additionally, Dance UK is building an online platform of resources to support dance managers and artists to develop their business related skills. More details will follow shortly.

Dance UK Business of Dance Bursaries worth £1000 eachSupported by Arts Council England

Dance UK’s Business of Dance programme is offering six bursaries of £1000 each, open to Dance UK company members by application. These bursaries are to enable dance organisations and companies to share their knowledge with the wider dance sector, responding to Arts Council England’s goal to promote collaborative working, knowledge sharing and development of a highly skilled workforce.

The £1000 bursary will enable the host organisation to offer paid skills development experience to one dance artist or manager, whilst also providing a small amount of resources for the host organisation to provide staff time and support.

The Bursary programme is flexible and responsive to the particular needs of dance organisations and their identified bursary recipient. We recognise that possible applicants will be from a wide range of backgrounds and have diverse skills development goals. For example, a dancer with the potential to be a producer or manager may benefit from a two month placement gaining practical experience of creating and managing budgets, negotiating fees or drafting contracts on a specific project. Alternatively, an experienced manager may have identified the need to develop his or her skills in income generation development via merchandising and wants to spend three days shadowing the commercial director of a large scale venue.

Taking this into consideration Dance UK has designed a simple and short application process where the host organisation identifies who they would like to work with and how they can offer support most effectively and appropriately. We recognise that dance companies and organisations have the local knowledge of specific artists and managers who would benefit from professional development support and this bursary can help you support them.

To apply for one of the six available Business of Dance bursaries, Dance UK corporate members should email the following information to caroline@danceuk.org by Friday 29 March:

1. Name of your company, address and contact2. Name of proposed bursary recipient (a dance artist, emerging manager / producer, or experienced manager who is seeking to expand a specific area of business knowledge. The recipient should have the capacity and interest to develop business and management skills and will gain valuable experience which will either enhance their ability to do their current job better, or boost their future job prospects through their placement.)3. A copy of the proposed bursary recipient’s CV4. The reasons why the recipient would benefit from the development opportunity (maximum 250 words)5. A short bullet pointed list of opportunities for business skills development that will be offered by your organisation, (maximum 250 words)6. The support that your organisation will put in place for the bursary recipient during their work placement (maximum 250 words)7. How you propose to spend the £1,000 bursary. (Companies should propose allocating the £1000 bursary in the most beneficial and appropriate way to support the identified dance professional to meet their skills development goal. This may be by paying the bursary to the to the dance manager or artist you want to support if that person is working within your organisation on a project for a number of months, or it may be to pay for staff time within your organisation to enable your staff to share their specific skills with the identified recipient. We recognise everyone’s needs will be different).

Please note, this application is deliberately light touch, we know you are extremely busy, so a short focused proposal is all we are looking for. This bursary scheme is to help you to share your skills by providing you with a little extra resource to do this, not give you lots of extra work to do.

Dance UK will notify successful and unsuccessful applicants by Wednesday 10 April 2013.

Dance UK announces first two Business of Dance bursary recipients:Dorcas Walters and Angela Towler are the first two Business of Dance bursary recipients. They will both be working with Dance UK to develop and deliver projects which address business skills gaps that they have identified they need to gain experience in. Dorcas Walters, a former principal dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet and Clore Fellow, is developing The Business of Dance programme, (expanding her experience of working in the management and business development side of an arts organisation). Angela Towler, a dancer with Rambert Dance Company has identified a need to gain project management skills. Dance UK is providing her a placement and mentoring within Dance UK’s team organising the forthcoming National Choreographers’ Conference at Sadler’s Wells in May 2013.